Chapter 45: Errands

The dry air of the Hadarac hit Arya like a physical blast, sucking the moisture directly out of her lungs. It was disconcerting to go from breathing sweaty, muddy cool air to the arid chill of the hottest, driest place in Alagaesia. Her footing changed, from the floorboards of Du Vrangr Gata's mobile workspace to the soft desert sands.

The arm around her waist shifted before a wave of warmth washed over her. She glanced up to see Harry putting away his wand. "Thank you," she pecked him on the cheek. Harry grinned.

"Of course. I can't imagine living here, or even traveling here without magic. Come on, let's dig up some sandstone. I hate this place already."

The morning sun was still low on the horizon, and the desert would not reach its hottest for many hours yet.

Arya drew her own wand. "Do you need help?"

He regarded her briefly. "Yeah, I suppose learning this stuff would be good. First, we have to get the sand out of the way. There are a few ways to do it. I could lift it all and throw it to the side, or transfigure it to air, or vanish it entirely. I favor vanishment, since lifting it requires you to throw it pretty far away, or else it will simply slide back in. You remember the vanishing spell?"

She nodded. It was one of the harder spells to master, requiring the suspension of disbelief that she was annihilating matter with nothing but a stick and a miniscule drop of power.

"Excellent," Harry praised. "We started with living things like snails, which are undoubtedly among the harder things to vanish. Any living thing resists vanishment. Theories vary as to why, but my favorite interpretation is that its mind, its soul cannot be vanished, so you are overcoming the animal's connection with their own body when you do so. Comparatively, dead matter like sand will be trivial."

Arya's eyebrows met in focus. She pointed her wand diagonally down, incanting "Evanesco." Nothing visibly changed, but she felt the spell finish, a subconscious sense of satisfaction.

"Try again. Remember to hold the image of your target in your mind. If you think of sand as a million little particles, it will make vanishing any appreciable amount of it tedious. Visualize sand as a sort of liquid with volume, and you'll be vanishing one thing instead of trying to simultaneously target a billion grains."

She tried again. Arya extended her senses into the ground, collectively targeting the area she intended. Sand filled her mind's eye, the coarse silt which collected for aeons in the massive desert. She focused on how it rippled in waves across sand dunes, how her feet sunk into it like mud. Again, she cast the spell. "Evanesco."

A surge of power raced down her arm, collected in her wand, then burst forth into the world, imposing her will upon reality and rewriting it into something more pleasing to her. A great cube of the sand blinked out of existence, pulling the air with it in a gust of wind as the pressure equalized. The gust pulled the surrounding sand into the hole she'd just made, rolling down the side of the slope. She blinked away the stinging sand in her eyes.

"Good job," Harry grinned. "I made the same oversight you did when excavating the hole I made for my time room. With nothing to hold up the dirt or sand around your target, they will collapse inwards over and over until you excavate enough that the surrounding matter forms a stable slope."

Arya felt a surge of satisfaction at his praise. She spent a lot of effort mastering Harry's style of magic, and to have his praise was a great feeling. The payoffs for her investment in learning were right in front of her: Harry grinning ear to ear at her, and the great section of the desert she'd just annihilated with a word.

Harry led her through tearing up an enormous cube of the sandstone beneath. It was a light reddish-orange color, and soft enough that Arya could scrape it with her fingernail. "I think it's red because it contains iron. Normally I'd expect the sandstone to reflect the color of the sand, but I suspect there's an iron deposit somewhere below. Red means hematite. We ought to dig up the iron, too. Let's confirm. These are the spells for dowsing and prospecting that I've found-"

She found the spells he taught to be fascinating, and was reminded that she was likely the most educated person on the planet about how the planet worked, moreso even than the dwarves for whom the subject had religious importance. The magic allowed her to see the path the ore had taken in the earth, the massive borders of the deposit, and the striations in the rock. The spells had mind-boggling range, extending for many miles from where they stood.

"It feels like I am reading a book which none but you and I can, and whose pages contain the absolute truth of the history of the world," she marveled to Harry. She pushed her spell further into the planet, feeling miles of igneous rock, dotted with pockets and trails of elements whose names she didn't recognize. Gemstones showed up like little motes of twinkling light, metals as shining veins, and other minerals as every other texture imaginable.

The spells pushed names forwards in her mind, reporting that the massive field of dull red beneath her feet was iron hematite, or that the traces of fiery metal were uraninite, or uranium oxide. Below it all, the entire foundation of the ground floated on a sea of magma, a million oceans of molten silicate atop which all civilization drifted lazily.

Arya released the barriers to her mind and allowed all the information to flow into her, like the torrent of minds in the glade which Oromis had taught her. It was intoxicating, the feeling of power she felt. She had become one with the planet, feeling the eddies and currents of the mantle, the slow subduction of the massive fault line that ran right through the Beors.

Reluctantly, she drew herself back within the confines of her own body, feeling the keen loss of her connection. She glanced up. Harry was watching her with concern.

"You alright?"

"I am well. Merely surprised that the meditative technique you are learning may be used in conjunction with your sensory spells to astonishing results." She laid back in the sand, uncaring that it would get into her hair. "The earth is incredible. Without the contextualization of your spell, I would never have been able to do as I have done: gaze upon the tapestry of the earth's history, which we all walk atop."

Harry sighed gustily. "Yeah, I really need to master that technique. Every time I wrench my mind open and let the life around me in, I get overwhelmed and struck by the need to defend myself. I was only able to see a few miles down, and without much detail. Still, it makes the war with Galbatorix seem so small. What does a tyrant mean to the whole planet? Even if he lives to be a million years old, it will be a mere footnote in the history of the world."

"It is not small for us. And we live through our own perspectives, bright and fleeting. A human may live eighty years if they are exceptionally fortunate. Men have been born and died under the Mad King's reign. The war we are bringing to Alagaesia will be no small matter, either. It will surely burn years and thousands of lives" She had sympathy for the shorter-lived races, how could she not? She had lived among them, broken bread and witnessed the joys and sorrows of dwarves and men. It was such a powerful thing, that hard time limit on life. It spurred them to live each moment to the fullest. She was aware that amongst her people, she was considered to be especially young. At just past a century, most elves regarded her as youthful, even foolish. But her travels had made her feel the few years she had to her name.

She remembered a guard, Orost, who stood sentinel outside King Orrin's keep in Aberon. The first time she'd brought Saphira's egg to Surda, he'd greeted her politely and without the nervous tension that other humans felt around her for being an elf. He had been hale and hearty, with sandy hair and a kind smile. The next time she came, it was two years later. She sought him out when she'd arrived. He'd been promoted. He showed off his shining new armor, designed in the style that all commanders wore. His face had been a bit more lined, a bit more weathered.

The next time she came, streaks of white had begun to creep into his hair. The time after that, there was no hair left colored that sandy blonde she remembered. Again, she went off to travel through Farthen Dur, up to Du Weldenvarden, through each elven city. And when she finally returned, Orost was nowhere to be found. One of the guards directed her to a home on the south side of the city. He'd welcomed her into his home, introduced her to his four children, each of which had their own. The large house was practically overcome with young children, screaming babies, and haggard mothers.

"I've invited them all home in hopes you would visit, so that I may introduce you," he had grinned. His face was wrinkled, crow's feet in the corner of his eyes. He'd told her the names of all eleven of his grandchildren. Arya still remembered them. Whenever her duties allowed, she would visit him. The time came when she had to leave, to return to her leafy birthplace, where time seemed to stand still.

And the next time she returned, Orost was truly old. He walked with a hunch, glancing wistfully at the gleaming sword and set of armor hung on the wall. Liver spots dotted his skin, which had become wrinkled and baggy. His veins stood out green and purple against his thin, transparent skin.

"The missus is well," he'd winked. "Visiting her sister in Petrovya. I was wary of her traveling at her age but-" he shrugged. "Best not marry a willful woman unless you're prepared."

They ate and laughed together, drank together, every spare moment she had from her duties. And when she left, her elvish companions Faolin and Glenwing seemed to lack something. A spark, an urgency of sorts. Faolin still composed his poetry, Glenwing still sung his songs to the birds in the forests. Neither of them had changed since she set out as the ambassador to her people, over a decade past.

They were both young, by the standards of elves, but much older than her. Both of them were approaching their second century. And she was keenly aware that Orost had lived for far longer than them, in his seventy years.

When she returned to Aberon, Orost was bedridden, his children tending to him. "What happened to the missus?" she asked politely.

"Died on the road back from her sister's," he'd said, grief flitting across his countenance.

How alien a concept. She had only known one person well who'd died, her father Evandar. And he died in a mighty battle against the forces of evil. To simply keel over on the path to her home felt unbelievable. The thought struck her then, that Orost would probably die before she came back to Surda the next time.

And so she had talked and made merry with him. That month had been the most meaningful, most filled time of her life. Each trip down to the river, each walk through the castle, each drink downed was so much fuller, knowing it could be her last with her friend. When the time came to leave, Orost had bade her a bittersweet farewell. They had been sitting on a rocking bench on his porch. And a thought struck her suddenly, too fast to hold her tongue.

"Are you afraid to die?"

He'd smiled and laughed, eyes twinkling through cataracts. "I am not sure. I do not know what waits for me after death. But I am ready for it. I believe I will see my beloved again."

"What if there's- nothing?" she ventured.

"Then there is nothing," he said simply. "What will be, will be."

When she returned again, he was gone. The large house in the capital of Aberon was no longer a lonely and morose home for an elderly man, but the house where Orost's eldest daughter lived with her own grandchildren. She wondered if his daughter resented her for staying young and beautiful while her father decayed before her very eyes.

Arya plunged a hand into the warm sand at her side, feeling it sift through her fingers. The excavation site before her was like a gaping wound in the expanse of desert. The Hadarac was somewhat familiar to her. After Orost had died, she decided to deviate from the route she and her companions had taken every time they traveled between the pools of allies who the blue dragon egg might hatch for.

Faolin and Glenwing had both been surprised. She justified herself with some flimsy excuse that retreading ground was asking for an ambush, but she knew she was lying. Arya was chasing something unnameable, that sense of being alive that she felt in Orost's final days. Faolin had been rather surprised at the route she plotted, which wound through the Endless Plains, further eastward than could possibly be necessary.

They rode past the river which traced between Du Weldenvarden and the Beors, deep into the endless grassland, navigating around the sections of waist-high grass, drawing the water to feed their horses from deep within the earth.

When she departed Ellesmera once more, Arya chose to go straight through the Hadarac desert. Faolin spoke to her then, having caught on to what she was doing. When she explained her reasoning, he agreed. Suddenly, she had an ally. Glenwing never brought it up. He simply went with the flow, content to follow her and Faolin during her increasingly remote and dangerous paths.

Faolin and Arya plotted ever more exotic routes, limited only by their responsibility for the egg and the need to avoid Uru'baen at all costs. She could not claim to be as well-traveled as Angela the herbalist, but she had seen many things. Du Fell Nangoroth, the blasted falls at the center of the Hadarac where ancient wild dragons had lived, had been one of her favorites. It had a wild, desolate beauty. Galbatorix had plundered the place during the Fall, leaving deep scars that were still visible ninety years later.

The Falls were a surreal oasis in the very center of the most arid place in Alagaesia. Great jagged teeth of rock and sandstone protruded from the sand at odd angles, forming a cluster of mountains that crowded around an enormous slab of stone which listed forwards, forming a grand overhang which resembled the slanted wall of a tent. Pure blue water gushed peak endlessly, kicking up mist which shrouded the whole place in a sense of surrealism. Craters pockmarked the ground, which was mostly barren rock and sandstone. The water from the mountain flowed around and between them, forming miniature lakes out of the inverted domes in the ground.

Arya watched contemplatively as Harry tore colossal chunks of reddish stone from the earth, and wondered idly if in the future, people wouldn't come up with a similar legend surrounding the massive hole he was deepening. If some new despot would rise up and inflict their own scars on the nascent legendary landmark, 'Harry's huge hole.' If they wouldn't leave patches of blackened and rough glass over the sand, or sooty starburst scorches on the rough rock. Great gouges in the ground from dragons leaping into flight, or long crescent scores of a tail spike sweeping across the earth.

They continued to work in companionable silence. Arya wondered if similarly pensieve thoughts ran through Harry's mind, or if he was just thinking about her naked. She studied his face and decided he probably wasn't. He got this silly grin on his face when he was. She found it very endearing, in a way completely different to the typical lustful looks that usually followed her.

She lent her magic to the task at hand, directing the enormous pile of hematite into great expanded crates. They finished just as the desert grew uncomfortably hot. Arya paid close attention to the sensation of apparition during the jump, determined to master the skill herself. The enveloping, squeezing blackness was just like every other time she'd been dragged through space by her crazy mate.

"When will you teach me how to do that?" She gasped. "Not that I'm eager to experience it more, but it seems too useful to ignore." She twisted the portkey ring around her finger.

Harry glanced at her in surprise. "You're right. I should teach you all. Really, I was waiting to make sure I could fix splinching, but I don't need to when I have replacement limbs made up for all of you." Arya sighed and pinched Harry.

"Please try and remember life-changing pieces of magic you might want to teach."

"Hey!" He crossed his arms defensively. "It's not like I've been stingy with the library. You could have read it yourself."

"After seeing you lose all your limbs in a single accident, I wasn't eager to try it on my own," Arya said sourly. Harry laughed.

"Don't try to side-along a dragon, and you'll probably be fine–actually, best have some supervision. Susan Bones left behind a leg the first time she tried. Wilkie Twycross the instructor fixed her up immediately with a puff of purple smoke. I just want to learn how to do that before I turn you loose."

"Then read up on it," Arya rolled her eyes. "Or I'll find the passage. Why are we here, anyways?"

'Here' was the salt flats they had grown accustomed to using for volatile experiments or absolute privacy. Much like the Hadarac, its temperature swung wildly between blistering hot and frigid with the movement of the sun. The absolute lack of moisture meant there was no moderating substance to hold in heat at night and cold during the day. As far east as it was, the sun had risen over the flats hours before the Hadarac, and it was well into hellish temperatures. Arya switched her warming charm to cooling.

"I've got all the iron I could need, all the sandstone, all the silicates, really. Now I want rare earth metals, and one place is as good as another for the way I intend to get them." Harry drew out a drawstring bag that thrummed with so much power to Arya's senses, she couldn't fathom how it didn't simply tear a hole in existence.

"Rare earth metals, rise from the earth and bind into cubes at my feet," Harry called. He cackled maniacally, throwing his head back. Arya rolled her eyes. His behavior was concerning, but not novel. "ULTIMATE POWER!" He shouted, grinning wildly.

The ground at their feet began to froth and boil, bucking wildly underneath her boots. Arya widened her stance for better balance. Why must Harry insist on casting enormous bits of magic without even the most cursory thought spared to safety? The bag had spilled open, countless spherical diamonds rolling out. Arya winced at each clack, the monstrous power contained in each one screaming to her mental senses. Before her very eyes, the otherworldly fire drained from them, turning to the typical dull sparkle of diamond.

Harry maintained the spell for ten minutes, during which he drained dozens of diamonds. Immediately after casting, enormous cubes of silvery metals, indistinguishable from one another except by whatever mental guidelines the wizard had set for his spell. Arya cast the mineral sensory spell in curiosity. The moment it completed, she gasped.

The stable ground of the Hadarac desert was like a placid lake. To her senses, Harry's spell had transformed the ground into a raging sea, bucking angrily and twisting upwards like a tornado. Arya withdrew from the spell and visually scanned the ground. She could pick out about thirty or fifty cubes in long rows, some tiny, some enormous. They were all absolutely dwarfed by the truly colossal pair of cubes which Arya thought must be more metal than every bit of the stuff ever forged in any kingdom in Alagaesia. She quickly located the characteristic dull, lustrous yellow of gold. It was perhaps a foot by a foot in size. It looked pathetic next to the largest one, which her spell identified as aluminum.

"How tall is that?" She shouted over the gnashing of rock, coughing at the plumes of salt kicked up. Arya slapped a hand over her nose and mouth cursing at the overpowering taste of salt on her tongue.

Harry cut off the spell and craned his head up. He gestured with his wand a couple times. "Holy shit!" he turned and grinned widely at her. The gleaming grey cube stretched beyond her ability to accurately comprehend distance. "The spell says a hundred yards! If I'd known it was this easy…" He yelped. "Man, you gotta be careful with that spell. Without gems, it would kill me in an instant."

Arya growled at him. "If you are going to throw away your life, at least do it doing something useful. Greed would a pathetic legacy make." She glared at the aluminum cube's twin, only a bit smaller than its brother. After those two, things rapidly shrunk to more sane scales. She walked down the line, observing the relative sizes of each one. They rapidly dwindled from mind-boggling to the size of Du Weldenvarden's biggest trees, then to the diameter of the trunks, before dwindling. Harry joined her, frowning.

"Yeah, pretty pathetic. That chunk of aluminum is not even the tiniest fraction of what's available belowground. It's just so abundant. One of my textbooks had a table for relative rarities of elements. Of course this is a different planet so it could be different, but gold is 0.004 parts per million, to aluminum's 81000."

"What is it useful for? No swords are made from the stuff, it is too weak." Bridges, maybe? Or tall buildings. Arya cast her mind back to those incredible images of gleaming metal cities.

"A lot. Architecture and construction, vehicles–especially aircraft–and consumer goods. Most things made of metal are made of aluminum, back home. Steel is just too heavy for anything that doesn't need to be incredibly strong." Harry began directing the cubes into boxes and shrinking them down.

"I'm not sure if this is more efficient than mining, at least for gold. I think we'd be better served finding a proper deposit with the prospecting spell than gathering the trace amounts from all over. Any more gold and we'd have to travel from here, else the distance we would be reaching for would make the cost of the spell ruinous. I'm just happy we don't have to do this with gems. I have been tinkering with the spatial-collapse process, learning how to make other gemstones."

Arya hummed in agreement. "Indeed. If you wish to gather more gold, I would suggest the Hadarac. There were enormous deposits beneath the sand, though pockets of the stuff stretch nearly to the surface. The tribes who live there are well known to be among the richest humans in Alagaesia."

"At least we've got lots of aluminum."

She cracked a smile. "A good thing, if you wish to make airplanes."

Harry gave her a crazy grin. "I'm totally going to make one. Dragon-sized, too."

"Where will you put the runway?"

"Oh. Actually- screw it. No runway. VTOL planes, all the way."

"VTOL?"

"Vertical Take Off and Landing. Only the military used them, and they were the most advanced jets. The nozzle of the thruster has this telescoping exhaust that points downwards, it's amazing. Makes me wish Dudley was less of a tyrant about his computer, the book printed a link to a youtube video on it." Harry conjured an image from his imagination, floating it in front of Arya. Like with the fairth exercise, his detail work missed a few parts, but the image was recognizably one of those planes she'd seen on the pages of his textbooks.

"Perhaps you ought to start with a normal plane, before immediately leaping to cutting-edge military technology."

Harry rubbed his chin. "Maybe. But I don't think your mum will be chuffed about an airstrip in Ellesmera. 'Excuse me, your majesty, could I chop down a great big strip of those enormous trees you practically worship?'"

Arya laughed. "We do not worship the trees, merely respect and cherish them for their majesty. Elves do not worship anything. At least, most do not." The ghostly image of her father came to mind, along with the cool feel of stone in her palm.

"Hm. I don't think wizards do, either. Or at least if they do, it is worship of unknowable higher powers, instead of specific deities. Hogwarts celebrated Christmas, though it was not remotely religious, merely the secularized popular holiday that everyone without a conflicting religion celebrates."

"And yourself?" Arya cringed internally at the way she phrased it. "I do not mean to demand. You may keep your silence, if you wish."

Harry stopped for a moment, as if he was really thinking. The copper cube he was directing drifted back to the ground. "I don't know," he said finally. "Neither Uncle Vernon nor Aunt Petunia ever bothered with religion, probably since they'd go straight to hell. I never went to church a day in my life, but I don't hate them or anything. I suppose I am an agnostic atheist who's been proven wrong."

Arya raised an eyebrow. "So you know there is a god, yet you will not worship them?"

He did not answer immediately. She could almost see him weighing his words carefully. "She kinda admitted to ruining my life. I got to come here as compensation for the prophecy she made, which got my family killed and my life sacrificed."

"Oromis would agree with you. He is of the opinion that if there is a god or gods, we ought to be trying to overthrow them for allowing Galbatorix to reign." Arya thought that perhaps she was misrepresenting his stance slightly, but the gist was clear: elves owe no one their allegiance.

Harry grumbled. "I think perhaps there is a god interfering, and not on Galbatorix's side, either. Too many weird coincidences that favor Eragon, who seems to be the prophecy child of this tale. You send Saphira's egg with magic to Brom, but his son gets it, and she just so happens to hatch for that one person out of the thousands she's been presented to. Who twisted your spell? I don't believe for a moment that you just accidentally sent the most important item in Alagaesia to the wrong person, heat of battle or not. And then afterwards, the dream about Murtagh drowning in the river."

"Premonitions are a studied and acknowledged phenomenon," Arya mused. "Though their source is unknown. Still, the egg ending up with Eragon is compelling. If we take the existence of a god or gods for granted, that grows much more suspicious."

He wrinkled his nose. "I hate that idea, that someone can just force you into some destiny that can get you killed. My life should be my own, just as yours should belong to you."

Arya sighed. "Premonitions are not set in stone. There are several accounts of visions coming to elves, humans, and dwarves alike, who kill themselves to prevent them coming true."

"If anything would work to break a prophecy, it would be that," Harry acknowledged. "Suicide has very powerful symbolism; an absolute rejection of something. And if you are less inclined to be mystical about it, dead men can't fulfill prophecies."

"Indeed. Still I would urge you to be wary of laying things at the feet of an unknown deity, whether they exist or not. To do so is to stop searching the mortal world for an actual reason. Gods are not the only ones who can interfere with a spell."

Harry nodded, wearing a troubled expression. "Then we must tread carefully. There is a secret faction out there powerful enough to influence your magic where Durza could not, and knowledgeable enough to send Eragon a vision of his half-brother, yet subtle enough that apparently the two of us appear to be the only ones with any notion of their existence." He glanced over his shoulder at his backpack, and drew out a couple of jade scrolls. "We have a couple deliveries to make, then we have five days free. We could look for group mysterioso then?"

"You want just the two of us to hunt down whoever this incredibly powerful, secretive group is? Alone, and without telling anyone where we've gone?" Arya clarified.

"That's correct," Harry grinned.

She snatched the scrolls from his hand exasperatedly. "Draw up some preparations, then. I'll go deliver these."

He looked at her in surprise. "You figured out apparition in the last thirty seconds?" She flushed.

"No. But you can make me portkeys, and teach me during the hunt."

Arya returned two hours later, noticeably less enthused. Hrothgar had taken only minutes to understand the functions of the scroll, and Harry had portkeyed her directly into his throne room. (without warning her!) but King Orrin had been insufferable in demanding all sorts of experiments be done to sate his curiosity, and simply getting a meeting with him had taken her half an hour since he was holding court at the time. The irritating spinning sensation she'd grown unaccustomed to had not helped her temperament. She was thus very relieved to finally pick herself up off the ground after her final return trip.

"You're back!" Harry exclaimed. He had transfigured the crumbled and dusted salt ground into a flat square of what felt like perfectly grainless wood. Atop it stood a group of three boards, one covered in cork and the other two, the glossy white of a whiteboard. Scraps of paper and novice fairths on paper were pinned onto the cork. In the middle of the square was a table with a reflective mirror surface, chairs on either side.

"How did it go?"

"Terribly," she said crankily. "King Orrin is a singularly obnoxious individual when his intrigue is roused."

"I bet he'd wet himself if I handed him an encyclopedia."

"Absolutely," she agreed. She glanced around. "What's all this?"

"My evidence, and the suspects." Harry gestured to the board. Scraps of paper read 'egg redirection,' 'vision of Murtagh,' and 'smoking gun: weird super-obliviation/fidelius.' Various colored strings connected each one to one or more bits of paper around the edge of the board. Little paper tags hung off the strings, some green, some black, some blue.

"The border has the likely culprits; groups or factions I think could have the power or knowledge to pull this off. The color of the string is for affiliation and motivation. Blue is the good guys, and connects reasons to factions that would benefit us or harm Galbatorix. Black is the opposite, and green is for unrelated reasons or inscrutable ones." Arya noticed that the majority of the green strings led to one or both of two scraps of paper, which said 'regional gods,' and 'God,' respectively.

"What is the smoking gun mind control one about?"

Harry cackled. "This is the bit of information that I think will reveal mysterioso. Eragon mentioned this to you, Brom, and I after meeting alone with Angela. He claimed that Solembum, the werecat, was told by someone unknown that if he ever met a free rider, he was to tell them if the time came and he needed a weapon, he should look under the roots of the Menoa tree."

Arya considered. Even the least superstitious knew that you ignored a werecat at your own peril. They were mysterious observers who flitted along the shadows of recorded history, observing and rarely intervening. She supposed it was rather fitting that Angela enjoyed the companionship of one, she was practically a werecat herself. That someone could give Solembum information, and that he chose to actually relay it instead of keeping it to himself, all without the informant betraying their identity, was a sobering thought. A thought occurred to her then.

"I do not remember that."

Harry nodded. "Therein lies the mystery. Mysterioso has wiped your memory of the fact. Eragon relayed what he was told, you expressed familiarity but not remembrance of the term in the second part of the phrase, as did Brom. Then, seconds after, you completely forgot about it. Twice more, Eragon repeated what he'd said, and twice more you forgot it. The reason you do not remember the first half is because whatever mechanism is forcing you to forget, it wipes the last ten or so seconds of your memory."

Arya kneaded her forehead. "Tell me you didn't-" Harry grinned insolently.

"I totally did. It is incredibly entertaining to mess with someone who is usually perfectly composed. Coincidentally, did you know that Oromis is also affected by this?"

"That is…good?" she said hesitantly. "It seems to only affect people on our side, and it cannot be Galbatorix for he does not know that Oromis survived the Fall."

"So you are avoiding telling me the term which will wipe the last ten seconds of my memory?"

"Yeah. Really, this is the kind of thing Angela lives for, but I think maybe we shouldn't ask her, since it's possible she is responsible. She's weird, mysterious, and has Solembum's ear. I might have dismissed this as a practical joke on you and Brom, but I can't imagine Oromis falling victim to it, too."

Arya resolved to subtly inquire with her. "So now, I cannot help you resolve this since the mysterious thing will force me to forget if you even mention it."

"Maybe you can tell me something before the spell kicks in?" Harry wondered. He cast tempus and watched the second digits flicker forwards. "I'll wait ten seconds, then ask you."

He stared at her. "That's not helpful."

"What?" Arya asked bewildered. She glanced up at the ticking digits. The count had skipped. She focused on the count. "Say it again." Immediately, the timer shot forwards by ten seconds or so. It was truly bizarre, like she was jumping forward in time by ten seconds, with no discernible effect. The jump happened again. Arya glanced down at her own legs, which had folded into sitting position without her ever recalling moving them. Suddenly, her hand was on top of her head. Harry's grin grew wider and wider.

"Stop it." Suddenly her feet were beneath her again.

Harry leaned forward. "Honestly, I'm not making you move, you just happen to agree with me every time I try to convince you how hilarious it would be to do it again. Now, I'm going to try and skirt around the issue. Do you know of any landmarks which are enormous rocks? Perhaps named rocks? Tell me the location first, before you tell me the name. I've confirmed that it's the name of the rock which triggers the effect. But I do not know if you actually don't know, or if mentioning it merely wipes your memory, and you still remember. A landmark, called the Rock of something. Where are all the named rocks you know of?"

"Deep in Du Weldenvarden, there is a stone, north of Ellesmera, called the Stone of Broken Eggs." She held her breath for a moment. "On the outskirts of Eaom, there is a group of great floating crystals–rocks. I–" some fleeting idea shot through her mind, too quick to grasp. The faintest notion of something she knew, which was frustratingly just out of reach. Whatever it was, she thought that maybe it was on Vroengard. "I think whatever you are looking for is on Vroengard."

Harry sighed. "That sucks. We'll probably have to wait until we return to Ellesmera to chase that lead. The only other thing I can think to pursue is the werecats, since the Menoa tree is also back there. I don't know if Solembum is still with Angela."

"We can ask," she suggested. "If you simply want to see any werecat, there is one who lives in Ellesmera, called Maud."

Harry crossed his arms petulantly. "I am not ending our mini-vacation for five more days. So we must think of something to do in that time. Something…amazing." A bundle of silvery cloth hung from his fingers.

"What did you have in mind?" Arya eyed the cloak warily.

He told her.

"Absolutely not."

"Oromis-Ebrithil, did you notice anything happen last night?" Eragon inquired, carefully analyzing the checkered board and the carved pieces atop it. The wily old rider nodded, toying with a white piece he had captured from Eragon.

"Glaedr and I both felt it, as did Queen Islanzadi and the more advanced members of the spellweaver's guild. The general consensus is that Harry is probably responsible. Did it wake you?"

Eragon scratched his head sheepishly. "I was awake, Ebrithil. Writing my thoughts on wars, men, and dragons."

"A heavy topic," Oromis agreed. "I only hope you are getting enough sleep. I have seen what happens to men who do not. Past a certain point, you lose more by being fatigued than you gain in time to work." He brought one of his rooks from the corner it had been ensconced in, pinning down his knight. Eragon struggled to check for patterns or pieces threatening his, counting the number of pieces threatening his center pawn. Chess was a fascinating mental exercise, and one which he had enjoyed greatly before Oromis really began to master it. Now, he found himself nearly incapable of winning a game off the elf, which rankled him.

"Did you bring your answers? I would read them."

Eragon wordlessly produced the sheet of paper and slid it across the lacquered table. He advanced his other knight, threatening to fork Oromis's king and the offending rook. Oromis adjusted a bishop to guard the square. In his other hand, he curved the bottom of the page, making it stand rigidly in his hand so he could read it. His eyes flicked back and forth inhumanly fast, golden irises flashing in the sun.

Oromis placed the paper down silently. His face betrayed no emotions. Eragon waited with bated breath, the game forgotten. He wondered how he did, what Oromis thought of his ramblings. The old elf's eyes dropped to the board, analyzing.

"Excellent," he said finally. "To overcome your prejudices is no easy task, and you have performed admirably." He toyed with a piece, searching Eragon's face intently. "Eragon-vodhr, you have put forth an astonishing effort during these lessons, and it is because of this that I am truly optimistic about the future of Alagaesia."

Eragon felt a warm sensation in his chest, a surge of pride in his behavior and abilities. He bowed. "Thank you, Ebrithil."

"It is aught but the truth. You and Saphira both have exceeded all of Glaedr's and my expectations. Continue to put forth this level of effort, and you will leave Ellesmera with all the tools to achieve whatever you and Saphira put your minds to. You have eschewed distractions and studied with nigh unhealthy zeal. It is my firm belief that you will defeat Galbatorix in time."

His face fell. "You think I could not beat him when I leave here?"

Oromis's expression grew dark. "If you and he were merely riders, perhaps. It would be a close thing. But Galbatorix is beyond any mortal strength, and has had a century to hoard even more. No matter the beast, wolf, bear, dragon, nidwhal, there is always a hunter above them. It is folly to expect to defeat any being you may cross paths with. Wisdom lies in realizing that you may not need to fight all your enemies, to defeat them."

"You think I won't need to fight Galbatorix?" Eragon was surprised.

Oromis shook his head. "You will never grow to match the Mad King's power directly, nor should you seek to. What he has done is a crime above crimes, a true evil deed for which there is no redemption. But he is not invincible. He breathes, he eats, he sleeps. Remember also that you are learning an entirely new and unknown branch of magic which he cannot possibly know, learn of, or guard against. I mean to say you should not seek to fight him head on. You must find his weakest points, those vulnerabilities which you may detect, then tailor your attack to exploit them. A flexible mind may overcome any amount of dumb brute strength."

"I see no reason to bring the wroth of the king down on our village, for the sake of one beggar!" Sloan exclaimed, slamming a meaty fist onto the shuddering table. Roran fumed at the man, arms crossed defiantly in his seat. He had ran back to the village with all haste, to relay what he'd heard to Horst. The smith immediately gathered Carvahall's council to relay the message.

They had been arguing in circles around the point for nearly an hour now, and it was Sloan who predictably spearheaded the faction that wanted to throw Roran to the wolves.

"I will not have it said that we are craven traitors who turn on our own at the slightest trouble," Gedric said angrily, glaring at the butcher. "To heap more misfortune on a victim of circumstance is dishonorable and cowardly. Carvahall is strong because we are together. Else you may go hunt for yourself, Sloan, and tan your own leather, forge your own knives, sew your own clothes."

Sloan's beady eyes shifted quickly between everyone at the table, his tongue darting out like a snake, wetting his lips nervously. "These creatures, they are no mere men, I tell you. They came for the cursed stone of Eragon's, mark my words. It is folly to resist them."

Gedric's lip curled. "I was given a weapon which is coated in no mere poison. I suspect a scratch will suffice to rid us of this beastly problem. Curious that you are so familiar with these strangers, though. It was strange, how quickly they managed to deduce Eragon had the stone. Perhaps someone told him."

The butcher licked his lips again. He opened his mouth halfway, then shut it. "Still relying on cursed and maligned items from magicians?" he said finally. "I didn't know you thought so little of your family, to do as Eragon did." Gedric bared his teeth, nearly lunging at Sloan for his belligerence. Fury rose in Roran's breast, his hand instantly curling into a fist.

"Enough!" Quimby shouted, slamming his palm on the table. I do not wish to see Roran handed over to the King anymore than you do, Horst, but we must accept that this decision affects us all. You do not send one hundred men after a single person, not unless you will not accept 'no' for an answer. Instead of squabbling, I propose we vote. There are twenty six of us here. Hands raised if we protect Roran. Thirteen or more, and we defy the Empire." He placed his hand in the air.

Horst's immediately shot up, though his bushy eyebrows were furrowed in anger. "I may vote this way, but I do not accept that thirteen cowards may sentence one of ours to death. Put your hand up, or be branded a craven." His dark eyes surveyed each person intently. Roran felt his heart begin to race, his nerves stretching to the breaking point. This could be it, he thought. If the vote goes the wrong way, I cannot fight my way through everyone.

Gedric's rose, along with four of the six village elders'. Roran put his hand up, earning a sneer from Sloan, who crossed his deliberately. Several more followed the elders' example, and at the end, Roran counted seventeen hands stretched upwards. Carefully, he committed to memory the faces and names of each who abstained. He released a clammy, sweaty grip from the haft of his hammer, his heart racing a thousand beats per minute.

Horst glanced at him, evidently having just finished doing the same thing. "Right, now that we've finished this foolishness, we must decide how to proceed. With what work Harry did with me during his aborted apprenticeship, I have plenty of weapons finer than any you'll find that aren't woven with sorcery. Enough to arm every fighting man in Carvahall. I would like to distribute them, just in case."

"A wise precaution," Quimby agreed. "News must be spread, but the weight of cold steel in the men's grasps will quell panic better than anything else."

"We ought to bring whatever we can into the village, and stay out of the outskirts if possible," Gedric suggested.

Ideas flew back and forth. Roran tuned them out. He released a tight, shaky breath and slumped in his chair. It seemed he would avoid doom by the skin of his teeth. It was more than he had dared hope for. They were taking the threat seriously, and immediately jumped to prepare for a fight. The clammy skittishness he had been feeling turned to a warm gratitude kindled in his chest. Even at his lowest, homeless and without family, Carvahall was willing to fight for him.

The door to the council room swung open in front of Roran's stiffened arm. Immediately outside, Baldor and Albreich were waiting nervously. "How did it go?" Baldor demanded instantly.

"Depends on your perspective," Roran said wryly. "They intend to fight for me, and plans have been drawn up for preparation in case of an attack."

Albreich clapped his hand on Roran's shoulder. "Excellent. Never had a doubt."

Baldor snorted. "Liar. You were as nervous as me."

"A very very small doubt," he defended. "Let's head home. Father will need our help arming everyone."

"Go ahead," Roran waved. "I don't think I'll be much use there. Fisk was going to ask for volunteers to prepare barricades, in case negotiations sour–which they will. I thought I'd help out." He lofted his hammer with a weak grin.

They split ways. Roran scanned each villager leaving the room until he spotted the carpenter. He fell in with the man. Fisk was perhaps thirty or so, with a lightly lined face and a genial demeanor. He smelled faintly of sawdust and sweat, and had calloused hands and fingers dotted with scars from splinters.

"I'm glad things went in your favor, Roran. You didn't deserve what happened to you, or your family. But I wonder what you need from me. I'd have thought you'd be with Horst and his sons?"

Roran shook his head. "They have no need for an unskilled laborer. I figure barricades don't need to be pretty, and I can hammer nails all day." He patted his hammer. Fisk laughed.

"I suppose you can. An extra pair of hands will be welcome! Quimby thought to send a scout or two to verify your story-" Roran stiffened in anger at the impugning of his honor, "-not because we don't believe you, but because this is a lot of effort for a story from one man. To have our farmers leave their fields, for me to use all my lumber on barricades, for Horst to give away all those weapons he and that Harry fellow made, it's a big commitment. We're looking at a hard winter, no matter what happens." He gestured at Roran and himself. "We can still prepare–saw some boards and whatnot–but we'll hold off on getting started for a couple hours to give 'em time to check things out."

Fisk showed him to his workshop which was not too far from Horst's forge. The smell of sawdust intensified. The soft, sand-like particles covered most surfaces in a light dusting, apart from cleared islands characterized by faint brush marks. "I'd set you on sweeping duty, but there's no point when we're going to be sawing non-stop, anyways." The man tied an apron on over his clothes, and gestured for Roran to emulate him before grabbing a great pile of oilskin and leading him out back. A pile of logs leaned against the house, next to a couple of sawbucks set six feet apart.

The pair of them heaved a thick length of timber between the top part of the 'x' the sawbucks formed, leaving it suspended at waist height. Fisk then unfolded the oilskin from a long, gleaming saw three feet across, with a polished handle on either side. Before he let Roran touch it, Fisk used the saw to score a line parallel to the ground and gave it a few firm saws to wedge the blade between.

"Now, these strokes have to be deep and most importantly, even. I'd you take your time and get a few good boards than see you make crooked cuts and get a whole bunch of useless scrap."

Roran found the repetitive work relaxing. Fisk was patient in getting him started and once he got the hang of it, Roran was content with the simple, mindless work. He'd eaten a small repast after returning to Horst's home, and enjoyed working up a fresh appetite. The sun overhead beat down on him, as if to press him into the dirt by sheer force of brilliance. He felt events and external forces attempting to force him to his knees. The sawing was an outlet to that frustration. He imagined the log splitting under his and Fisk's efforts to be his problems. Roran would not yield to this new test of his character. He felt his nerves, his apprehension and pressed them into the longsaw, into the relentless sawing motion.

When the sun began to dim, Fisk called a halt to their work. "Good," he praised breathlessly. Seventeen logs lighter, the pile next to the workshop was markedly smaller. A stack of cleanly cut boards had formed atop a sturdy table, and next to them, a pile of radially cut triangular shafts, which were destined to be lathed into poles, either for spears or perhaps furniture.

Roran mopped the sweat from his brow with a fist of bunched up apron. His muscles were rigid and sinewy from his efforts at Dempton's mill, which led him to privately conclude he was in better shape than Fisk. "If you need a day's work, you're welcome anytime, Roran." The carpenter grinned. "Help me bring the lumber inside, won't you? We'll have supper, then we can check back in with Quimby and see what the story is." They each took an end of the stack of boards and walked it awkwardly into the shop, Roran glancing quickly over his shoulder to watch where he placed his feet. Once the other pile was out of the elements, Fisk led him inside to his house, where his wife Isold had prepared a mouthwatering meal.

When they had eaten their fill, Roran and Fisk strode purposefully back to the council room. They arrived to find it in disarray. The chairs around the table had been pushed back varying distances, as if their occupants had gotten to their feet so fast the backs of their knees shoved them across the floor. Quimby and Sloan were shouting at each other furiously, a pair of boys Roran recognized as Nolfavrell, Quimby's and Brigitte's son, and one he wasn't certain the name of wore matching expressions of nervousness.

"-you rotten-brained slugs think that even if every man, woman and child took up arms against a hundred of the King's finest-!"

"-cowardly, foolish enough to turn on our own! We can always negotiate-
Sloan snorted derisively. "What is there to negotiate about, fool? The King wants one thing, and no amount of dithering is going to change that! We can't hope to match the Empire, and you won't even entertain the idea of doing anything but killing ourselves on their swords for the sake of one troublemaker, whose life may not even be in danger! Who says Galbatorix wants him dead?"

"Then we can fight!" Quimby shouted in his high voice. "Shame on you for your spinelessness. Roran is one of ours, and we'd do the same for you or Katrina." Sloan's face reddened. He opened his mouth to retort, but was stopped.

With their arrival, it seemed that Horst, who had been standing against the wall arms crossed like a couple of baked yams, had had enough. He lifted his enormous hands and gripped Sloan and Quimby each by the collar.

"Enough! You fight amongst yourself even as the sky is falling! Sloan, the matter is decided. We voted fairly, and now you must abide by it. Go and make yourself useful." Horst pushed him towards the door.

Sloan shot a venomous look of absolute loathing at Roran, then stormed out. The oaken door's hinges shrieked for the briefest moment, followed by a rattling slam that seemed to shake the whole room.

Horst shook his head and turned to Fisk. "Preparations began in all haste perhaps an hour ago. I'll need your help with spear shafts, and whatever expertise you can lend on where we ought to erect barricades."

"Aye, you'll have 'em," Fisk agreed. "Roran helped me cut several logs into shape for spear handles. I imagine we have until tomorrow morning at the earliest before we see any soldiers, if they haven't arrived already. Roran, you're with me on the lathe, I think. Could you bring the spearheads, or have them sent over, Horst?"

"Albreich can take them. Baldor and I have been turning out nails as fast as possible, since that's all we can do. Everyone will be armed, assuming you can put handles on the things before trouble gets here."

Quimby sidled up to them, an indignant expression on his slightly reddened face. "I shall negotiate on our behalf. They will hear us out before attacking."

"You may need to stall," Horst advised. "I know not how prepared we will be, or if they will attack outright, but I suspect we'll need every second we've got."

"Of course," he puffed up. "I shall do whatever it takes to ensure a favorable outcome." He strutted out of the room, inflated by his own self-importance.

"I don't envy him his job," Horst said darkly. "Something tells me these strangers are a little more in charge than the soldiers, and they don't strike me as the type to negotiate."

Roran shuddered. "They are not."

"The King has no quarrel with you!" The soldier announced, voice carrying over the complete silence in the village. It was early morning and just as the general consensus predicted, the soldiers showed up bright and early. "We come for the man known as Roran Garrowsson. You have my word, he shall not be killed."

Roran studied the formation. The man in front had the weathered face and confidence of a man no younger than thirty, with neatly trimmed brown hair and sideburns, a clean-shaven lip and chin, a hint of grey creeping in. Behind him, Five men stood at attention, hands on the pommels of their sheathed weapons. The one in the middle lofted the black-and-red standard of the Empire, which hung dejectedly on its pole in the still air.

He knew there were more men, though he supposed they were trying diplomacy first, which he could respect. What concerned Roran most was the conspicuous absence of the black-cloaked strangers.

"You ask for something we cannot give, Lieutenant," Quimby said with all the pompous politeness he could stuff into his voice. Roran half expected the man's modest clothing to sprout ruffles and brass buttons. "The man in question is one of ours, and honor compels us to respect his wishes on the matter. Roran does not wish to place himself at the King's mercy."

"Commander," the soldier corrected absently. "Commander Harfang." He stroked his chin musingly. "Does this Roran wish to speak for himself?"

Quimby seemed taken aback, as if he had never considered that his own testimony would be insufficient. "I-"

Roran sighed and stepped forwards. "I am he."

"Does this man speak truly?"

"He does," he nodded firmly. "I have my suspicions about what brought you here, and I want nothing to do with it. I have committed no crime which would see me arrested, and I have reason to believe going with you would be harmful."

"I'm sorry, but orders are orders, Roran," Harfang said sympathetically. "From the way you've got your entire village out here, I suspect you've seen the men the King allocated to retrieving you. I cannot take no for an answer. I can guarantee you a certain level of comfort on the journey, so long as you behave. I'm afraid past Uru'baen, it's out of my hands."

Roran felt a pang of regret for the circumstances which placed the two of them opposite each other's weapons. "Then it seems there will be conflict, for I shall never voluntarily go before the King, and Carvahall has decided to stand behind me."

Commander Harfang nodded. "I understand. You're a smart man, by my reckoning. I'll not pretend the circumstances are pleasant, but I understand your decision. You have until sunset to make a decision–in case you change your mind. We'll be camped out by the blasted farmstead, in case you decide to forgo the unpleasantries. If you don't show…"

"Thank you for your respect, Commander Harfang," Roran said respectfully. "I shall think on your proposal, though I warn that I do not anticipate my answer changing."

Harfang gave him a crisp salute. "We'll be seeing each other." He shouted to his troops, and the six-man procession turned away and rode out of the village.

The following day was the most tense of Roran's life. With the definitive information of a pending attack, all the tentatively planned countermeasures which no one had really wanted to implement were being prepared at full steam. Everywhere he went, he felt the heavy weight of the villagers' gazes. These people which he had grown up with, known since he was a boy, all watching him, knowing he was the reason they were to be attacked on the morrow.

For several hours, he sat at Fisk's lathe, pumping the foot pedal and turning the split lumber down into spear shafts, handing them off to the carpenter who would meticulously affix spearheads to the tops with an augur, glue, and pegs. Once the last spearhead was finished, Roran began lending his aid wherever he could. Perhaps it was guilt for being the reason for the preparations' necessity, but he felt compelled to put his all into it. Digging trenches, dragging logs around, lashing them together with rope and forming barricades, Roran kept his hands busy from dawn 'till dusk. The women had brought out food for the workers, or else lent their own strength in whatever way they could.

Gathering thorny weeds to drape over barricades, sharpening weapons, or relocating supplies to within defensible areas, no one was idle in the village. He wasn't sure why he committed himself to those menial tasks with such zeal, but if it was to suppress thoughts of impending battle, his efforts were in vain.

Commander Harfang's words hung over him–indeed the entire village–like a wrathful thundercloud over a silent sky. Promising violence.

A flash of light brown hair caught his attention. Roran's eyes flitted towards it, heedless of his conscious direction. He caught sight of his beloved Katrina. He found her even more radiant than usual, her hair mussed and wearing a bloody apron which jangled with knives. "Roran!" She called urgently. He quickly made his excuses and handed off his pile of weeds to Gertrude, heartbeat quickening.

"What is it?"

"My father, I cannot find him. He came in furious this morning and told me to stay in the shop." Roran very nearly gaped in shock. He knew that Sloan treated Katrina as if she could not breathe on her own. The idea that he would leave her to man the butchery was uncharacteristic in the extreme.

"-I thought perhaps he was helping prepare the village, but he is nowhere to be found, and no one has seen him since morning."

"Nor have I," he assured. "Perhaps he fell asleep somewhere?" He knew it was reaching, but the only other place Sloan could be, Roran desperately hoped he wasn't. He did not want to be the one who gave voice to that ugly thought, to suggest that he was a traitor.

Katrina was struck with indecision. "He must have," she agreed. "I'll go look more thoroughly."

Roran's suspicion put him ill at ease for the rest of the evening. When the sun had fallen fully, they worked under lantern light for two more hours before it was agreed that they were done. Whatever they had would have to be enough, because everyone needed their rest for the day after. He was cautiously optimistic about their chances in the impending battle. All around the village, sturdy log barricades had been affixed to the mouths of the alleys between houses. They were draped with thorny and poisonous weeds, which hid sharpened sticks and jagged bits of scrap metal pounded into them. On the surrounding rooftops, jars of oil had been prepared to be poured over the sides. Every villager was armed, including the women, and anyone who knew how to shoot a bow had brought theirs, with all their arrows.

Trenches in front of the walls were dug so that horses could not charge straight up, nor battle rams be brought right against the barricades. Roran knew that if they chose to smash through the sides of the adjacent houses, there was nothing he could do, but he hoped the enemy soldiers either tried to climb over or bust through the prepared barricades.

Now there was nothing to do but wait for dawn to come and with it, Galbatorix's soldiers.

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"But-"

"-No!"

Harry thought Arya was being a bit unreasonable. He actually had quite a bit of faith in his plan.

"It would be so easy! We could literally just both huddle under the cloak, waltz in there, use the Name, and steal those bad boys!"

"If we are caught, it would be beyond disastrous," Arya said frustratedly. "Consider what Galbatorix could do with your knowledge. He'd immediately start making Horcruxes, and we'd never be able to stop him!"

"We will not get caught."

"How can you guarantee that?"

Harry brought out the cloak. "This is literally a divine artifact. Made by God. Not just any god, the God. We already know our minds cannot be detected while wearing it, which is something nothing else can do. We could stand right in front of Galbatorix while wearing it, and the only way he finds us is if he accidentally trips into us. Magic doesn't work on the cloak or its wearers, either, so his wards are useless. The only thing we have to worry about is mechanical traps, which I somehow doubt will be all over the place given that actual people need to move about in the citadel, and there's no reason for them to even be armed!"

"You are proposing to steal the two most coveted, valuable, and well guarded objects in the world, out from underneath the nose of the most powerful, dangerous man alive. Even if we pulled it off, we cannot hope to weather the retaliation. Ellesmera is beyond his reach, as is Farthen Dur, so it will be Nasuada or King Orrin who will bear his wrath, the two factions least prepared for an attack by Galbatorix."

Harry ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I guess if you put it that way, it sounds bad." He thought for a moment. A mischievous grin crept across his face. "He won't retaliate if he doesn't know it happened…"

Arya froze. "You mean-"

"We replace the eggs with replicas, and then cast the fidelius to make it impossible for him to realize he's been fooled. He'll just be frustrated that the eggs will never hatch for the rest of eternity, or until the Varden gets them to hatch."

Arya laid back on the carpet. "I can't believe I'm considering this."

Harry sat back quietly and let her think. They had gone round and round on the topic for ten minutes now. "We can do other stuff there, too, you know. Read his reports, copy his library, discover any spies he has in the Varden and what the numbers of his troops looks like."

"Fine."

"-but- wait. Did you say fine?"

"I said fine," Arya repeated reluctantly. "We'll go through with your completely insane plan. But! We're going to do this as safely as possible. You need to make us both portkeys back to here in case something goes wrong. We go in slowly, invisibly, through the walls of the city first to make sure it works. We silence ourselves within the cloak, and cast nothing but the fidelius, after we get out."

Harry agreed easily, and enchanted himself a ring as she spoke before sculpting two massive diamonds into egg shapes, based on how Saphira's looked a year back. "What colors are they?"

"Green and red," Arya said. "None of our spies have ever actually seen them, but it's hardly a secret since Galbatorix has let practically every loyal person of his touch them in hopes they hatch."

Harry turned them into the requisite colors. Firetruck red and stoplight green. "Darker green," Arya advised. "We cannot know the exact shades, but we do know that they are blood red and forest green."

He cast the fidelius quickly, the familiar ritual coming faster to him with each cast. "The big red diamond is not a dragon egg." And then, "The big green diamond is not a dragon egg."

Their decoys went into an expanded sack, hopefully to be replaced eminently by the real deal.

Harry spent some time casting and testing silencing charms, both on his and Arya's shoes, then the rest of their clothes. "No speaking out loud," he heard in his mind.

"Right," he agreed easily. The mental connection let him see her emotions, and vice versa. Harry felt her apprehension at the idea of willingly entering their enemy's sanctum, but also her anticipation. They both loved a thrill, and there was nothing more thrilling than real, imminent danger.

He tossed the cloak over them both, and a feeling of nostalgia struck him. He could just as easily imagine Hermione or Ron next to him instead of Arya. Harry was glad it was Arya. The pleasant smell of the forest, crushed pine needles and petrichor made him inexplicably happy.

"Is there a smell-masking charm?" Arya sent.

"Actually, yes." Harry flicked his wand. The feeling was immediately noticeable and unpleasant. It felt like he'd been dipped in plastic wrap. He dismissed the spell "Let's wait to cast that until right before the citadel. It will get less comfortable the longer it's active. It traps everything against your skin."

Arya silently acquiesced. "I'm going to apparate now," he warned. Fixing the image of the city from the scrying bowl in his mind, Harry pulled them to a hundred paces from the gate. The tension he felt instantly ratcheted up a hundred times, both from himself and from Arya.

Sneaking past the guards was a thrill, though not particularly challenging. The city was very heavily defended, with guards milling about over the entire length of the enormous wall. In front of the gate, a dozen men decked in red-and-black livery stood at attention. A thirteenth person, an unarmored woman in a black cloak stood behind them and just behind the gate. Harry felt her mental presence in the air, searching continuously, except for when a guard challenged someone entering.

The road behind them held a long procession of wagons and carts and horses and men, each waiting to be stopped for a moment, then waved through. The guards seemed bored, yet attentive, while the people in line were just bored. They probably went through the same thing every day.

Harry's first impression of the city was a grudgingly positive one. They made good progress through the streets, which gave him adequate opportunity to look closely at how the people lived in the heart of enemy territory. The invisibility cloak had seemed to lengthen around the two of them, easily accommodating both of them despite Arya's rather significant height advantage, and the fact that the two of them were both adults. The hem did not drag on the ground or get underneath their feet, but nor were their ankles visible from the outside. It seemed like divine artifacts were very user-friendly.

Uru'baen was clean. While the air was not as earthy and fresh as Ellesmera, it was certainly fresher than Farthen Dur, and cleaner than even Aberon. "Magic, do you think?"

"Probably," Arya agreed. "There are too many people here for there to be no smell."

The air wasn't the only nice part of the city. The streets were nearly pristine, free of any mud being tracked in by the horses and carts. The walls of the buildings were clean, too. He spotted public fountains of pure water that nearly sparkled in the sunlight. Harry could tell that a lot of the architecture was elvish, or at least derived from their style. Tall, graceful towers like Silthrim's rose from the ground, dotted among the neat rows of more sturdy, low houses. Harry had yet to spot a single private building without multiple levels, usually three but occasionally two or four.

They passed into the market district. Great marquees and pavilions of bright canvas cast shade over dozens of merchants congregating in the great open square. Arya drew his attention to the masonry on the ground. Most was dull grey stone, but there were lines of red sandstone that marked out roughly where the aisles of vendors had formed. Harry was impressed by the level of forethought and organization that showed.

More permanent shops were built into the surrounding buildings, craftsmen's centers with curiously little noise pollution. Harry would have expected to smell the soot from coal fires or the sawdust from carpenters, or at least hear the hammering of steel on steel. But all he could hear was the chatter of traders and buyers. The produce looked good, piles of fresh food. Vibrant green heads of cabbage, silky ears of corn in their husks, sacks of flour and oats, wooden boxes of fruits. "Is this typical for the bigger cities?" Harry wondered.

"No. Though some cities enjoy more prosperity than others–Teirm and Aberon chief among them–this is very much unusual."

Harry crept forwards and snagged a handful of blueberries when the vendor was turned away, withdrawing his hand beneath the cloak and splitting it with Arya. He tasted one. They were pretty good. Not quite on the level of his own produce or the elves, which were grown with magic, but they were at least comparable to the stuff he might find at a grocery store back home.

"That was an unnecessary risk," Arya scolded.

"No it wasn't," Harry denied, "We're gathering foreign intelligence: how good is the enemy's food." He felt Arya's exasperated amusement.

"We take no risks in the citadel," she commanded. He nodded.

They continued up the wide streets past throngs of people. The average person wasn't obviously happy, but neither were they visibly miserable or cowed. Harry supposed the King's infamous recluse status worked for him in that instance. Most of these people had probably never seen him, despite the man living in the great citadel just ahead.

Above the city hung a colossal overhang, an enormous shelf of rock which cast a faint shadow across a great swathe of the buildings. The citadel looked very deliberately placed not underneath the overhang, presumably so attackers couldn't just drop missiles from overhead. A tall elvish watchtower stood atop the overhang, its view certainly extending for miles. Harry assumed that the city wall extended to surround the base of the hill, though he could not see it from street level.

The citadel was a beautiful building. It was also very clearly not elvish. The whole thing almost reminded Harry of Celbedeil, the religious capital of the dwarves. A great edifice of marble, the citadel had the colossal scale of dwarvish architecture. The open archway was enormous, so large that Harry could–from the bottom of the street–see all the way to the throne room doors, grand slabs of carved gold. The dome over the throne room was similarly massive, large enough to baffle Harry with its scale.

Golden inlay shone in the late morning sun, all over the exterior of the building. Towers and pillars supported the citadel's many large windows. Harry was momentarily puzzled by the lack of an obvious keep but decided it was either underground, or else Galbatorix was so confident in his abilities that he did not bother to have one.

Each step forward felt like the teeter before a vertical dive on his broomstick. Harry was keenly aware that he and Arya were completely, entirely beyond help from there on. It would be at least a year before Nasuada managed to conquer her way to Uru'baen. And neither of them believed it would take a year for Galbatorix to break them.

It felt incredible. Harry had scarcely ever felt more alive. His heart thudded in his chest, loud enough in his ear that he was sure Arya could hear it. Blood roared in his ears, and adrenaline surged through his veins, heightening his senses to a nearly painful degree. Where his elvish senses were already keen beyond any human level, they now felt virtually omniscient. He could feel the millions of threads of the invisibility cloak against his skin, count each stitch on his t-shirt, feel the definition of Arya's biceps against his arm. The gauzy veil of the cloak felt less opaque than usual, hardly impeding his vision at all.

"Mask our scents," Arya reminded him.

As keyed up as he was, Harry felt the spell like an oppressive glove. Nearly immediately his pores were filled with sweat pressed against the barrier, unable to evaporate or well up and slide down his skin. He added a smart temperature regulation charm to alleviate the issue. Arya's distaste for the masking charm was a faint irritation at the edge of his senses.

A pair of bubblehead charms kept them from disturbing the air with their breathing, and then they stepped over the threshold.

Nothing happened. Harry and Arya walked shoulder-to-shoulder behind the trickle of nobles wandering up and down the hall. There were no evident branches to the corridor, so the pair of them followed the flow of people to the throne room ahead. "Galbatorix will be holding court now, until lunchtime," Arya sent.

They passed under the grand doorway and Harry's breath was stolen. The external size of the citadel could not prepare him for the sheer magnitude of the throne room. It was the size of a city stadium. Harry thought the room was likely a full circle, but the back third was cordoned off by an enormous black curtain. The place was brightly lit with sunlight despite the room's lack of windows. Rows of benches and chairs filled with finely dressed men and women were arrayed around the throne which Harry found relatively modest.

Its back was about eight feet high, the seat wide and powerfully built from gold and velvet, but to Harry it felt disappointingly mundane when compared to Hrothgar's seat of power, whose back stretched hundreds of feet up to the cavernous roof. The man sitting atop it was also disappointingly normal. Harry had almost expected some deformed monster like Voldemort, with slitted red eyes and no nose. But Galbatorix was very visibly human. His ears were round, his eyes black as his hair. He wore a short beard trimmed right up against his skin, and his features were somewhat average. No cruelly lined facial expressions to suggest his face was often contorted into a rictus of hate or rage, just the smooth skin of a thirty-some year old man. He was powerfully built with broad shoulders and waist, though his kingly attire obscured his musculature from view.

"He looks so…normal," Harry remarked to Arya."

"Not all monsters must wear their ugliness openly."

He supposed that was true enough. Harry indicated he wanted to stick around for a moment and listen to the man hold court. Despite his complete ignorance of how absolute monarchs ruled, he found the issues raised to also be fairly normal.

"Lord Ryden wishes for lowered taxes on the coming harvest, on account of the refugees who fled under the Urgal mobilization, your majesty."

Galbatorix would listen carefully, then ponder whatever some solicitor brought to attention, before pronouncing his ruling. "He shall have it. He may keep one in four parts of the tax to do with as he sees fit. But you will warn him that he must use it well, and not betray my trust, else he shall repay what leniency I have granted."

The nobleman would bow, murmur thanks, and either sit if they were important enough to stay, or take their leave. Then the next solicitor would approach, and it repeated. Harry was bored within five minutes.

He tugged Arya deeper into the enormous room, skirting the walls. The entryway was directly opposite Galbatorix, but it was only one doorway of several around the edge of the cavernous room. They went around the edge towards the great black curtain, since Harry figured the opposite side would lead deeper.

As they neared, he found the curtain to look much more strange than his first impression. The edges did not touch the walls, but were curved up along a bent pillar reminiscent of a bone. He frowned. The black material seemed to shift ever so slightly, like a breeze had caught it. But the air was still.

Harry flattened himself against the wall, indicating that Arya should do the same. He edged past the pillar careful not to touch it and generate any ripples that might be seen. The pillar was far wider than he'd assumed from in front, and took several careful shuffles to pass. They reached the other side.

Curiously, the curtain did not seem to hide anything important. The darkened area was filled with a massive mountain of shapeless, shadowed black material. It tapered down towards him, ending in a sort of hillock, the size of the house on #4 Privet Drive. Harry breathed a sigh of relief, which was summarily silenced by the bubblehead charm and the myriad of stealth charms cloaking him and Arya. He felt a similar wash of relief from Arya.

He had been about to step forwards when suddenly he felt a surge of terror so potent it nearly tripped him. "What is it?!" He demanded mentally.

The house-sized hill opened an enormous, slitted black eye. It fixated directly on them, the pupil dilating and contracting in focus. He froze. It was so big Harry would not be able to touch both sides with fully outstretched arms and legs. Harry felt the back of his neck burn, sweat welling up against the scent-barrier and turning his skin clammy.

Arya sent him her own perspective on what she was seeing, and suddenly Harry realized. The sloping mountain transformed in his vision into a spine, stretching into the shadows and out of sight. The far slope was a colossal folded wing, tucked against the unthinkably huge dragon's side.

Suddenly, a blast of hot, humid air pushed at them, nearly pinning the two of them to the wall behind. Harry tracked the breath to two cavernous nostrils big enough to drive a lorry through.

A sudden burst of urgency cut through his horror. "We need to get out of here before it breathes in!" Arya realized.

As quickly as they could while keeping quiet, Arya and Harry shuffled along the wall, careful not to make a sound. They edged further and further away, and not a moment too soon.

Shruikan the black dragon began to inhale, sucking harshly at the air around them and pulling hard on the cloak. It slipped halfway up Harry's side, revealing his legs and feet to the enormous dragon. He snatched at the material before it could be torn from them, leaning into the gust of air refilling behind the dragon's breath. The colossal slitted eye had followed and was focused directly on them.

Harry yanked the hem down to his feet, heart pounding in his throat. They continued to shuffle as quickly as they could manage without touching the wall or letting the cloak flap around their ankles. The eye remained fixed on the point where Harry had covered them back up, and did not follow.

"Do you think he will tell Galbatorix?" Harry nearly panicked.

"If he does, we must abort immediately. We cannot afford to be caught."

He could tell Arya was still terrified that Shruikan would move visibly and give them away. A doorway came into view at the dragon's midpoint, open and with light spilling through. It would be directly opposite the enormous entry hall. Harry pulled her around the corner, heaving desperate lungfuls of air. His hands were clammy and slick with sweat. Something brushed up against his shoulder, making Harry nearly jump out of his own skin.

It was Arya, making eye contact with him. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, her pupils dilated to the point that her green irises were nothing more than lines around her pupils. Her face was flushed red, and Harry could feel her heart thudding under her skin.

"That was way too close."

"Agreed. I am not looking forward to passing Shruikan by during our retreat, successful or not."

All that Harry was able to think about was how big Shruikan was. He could probably eat Saphira in a single bite, perhaps two or three for Glaedr. "There is no way his size is natural," he sent to Arya. "Glaedr has five hundred years on him at least. Has any dragon ever grown to this size?"

"Yes, but few. Belgabad, Umaroth, Bid'Daum. A few others. All lived thousands of years before reaching that size, and hunted prodigiously."

Harry turned away from the doorway and started deeper. He gripped Arya's hand tightly, as much for his own comfort as hers. Right then he didn't care if the hallway led directly towards both of the Ra'zac, all he knew was that he had to put as much distance as possible between him and the mountainous black dragon.

The hall was made from the same marble trimmed with gold, yet it was mostly unadorned, save for occasional tapestries seemingly hung on a whim. Back there, Harry noticed the wards and spells for security as a near physical weight over his shoulders. It felt hostile and angry, constantly searching for intruders to attack.

"Active wards," Arya warned. "They are not just trying to keep us out, but to incapacitate intruders already inside, as well. To take off the cloak is to be apprehended instantly."

The natural light from the throne room was gone, replaced by a sourceless warm illumination. No more than a dozen yards down, the corridor branched off in either direction. He stared helplessly. The walls were bare of any signage, and he doubted the King would put up helpful plaques with directions to his ultra-valuable treasure. He prodded at Arya's mind inquisitively, and found that she had as little idea as he did. With no clear direction to take, Harry decided to go forwards.

The corridors continued in such a manner, branching out every hundred feet or so. Harry continued forwards whenever available, and picked alternatingly left and right to go as deep as possible into the citadel. He began to doubt he'd be able to find his way back after the twelfth turn. The corridors all looked exactly the same, the only notable landmarks being the interspersed tapestries.

"Can you find our way back?" he asked Arya.

"Yes. Left after King Palancar II, forward three corridors, right at Vroengard skyline-"

"-Good, because I'm completely lost already. Should we start peeking into doors?"

"No! If someone is inside, they will notice a door opening. And Galbatorix may have wards to notify him of such."

"Then we are going to have to either search with our minds, or else cast the one-way transparency spell repeatedly."

"Do not use Word magic. If you must cast a spell, it must be one of yours."

Harry nodded. He knelt next to a closed door and traced a square no larger than an inch against the wall, thinking the incantation for the disillusionment spell as intensely as possible. The surge of magic felt incredibly muted compared to normal, but it still made Harry wince. As keyed up as they were, he might as well have screamed in his own ears.

A single square inch of wall grew transparent. Harry placed his eye up to it and scanned the interior before letting Arya take his place.

Inside was a storage space, stacked wooden boxes and drawstring bags leaned against each other in piles. The room was dim and unlit, but his eyesight was keen enough to make out most details anyways. "Do we check it?"

"He will have put the egg in a place of honor," Arya disagreed. "And this will not be the only storage space. If we check every one, we will be here until Nasuada is beating down the gates."

Harry ended the spell and moved to the next door. Behind it was a sort of menagerie of horrifying-looking creatures. A strange man-sized snail thing with eyeballs on tall stalks locked within a cage next to an ominously rattling wooden box small enough to fit in his hand.

He tentatively extended his mind towards the room. There was magic on the door, a matrix of spells and wards tied off to someone back the way they came. Inside, the yammering discordant thoughts of caged animals assaulted his thoughts. He checked through the beasts carefully, yet none struck him as clearly draconic. He shook his head to Arya and they moved on.

They chose rooms at random for the next hour without any real progress. Many of them were rooms for individual experiments left laying about, but none of the experiments caught Harry's interest.

"This is not working," Arya announced. "We must search for the most heavily warded rooms, else we will never find the eggs." Harry felt the barest whisper of her mental presence pass him by as it extended outwards. "There are several abnormally strong concentrations of wards here: the entryway behind us, two huge rooms with moderate foot traffic, an octagonal room deep beneath, two cavernous rooms beneath that one, and two smaller ones. One is hidden deep, the other is about a hundred yards that way." she extended a finger diagonally through the wall behind them.

Harry thought for a moment, piecing together what clues he could. "The two big rooms can be discounted immediately. One is likely the treasury, the other a library or war room of some sorts." It followed that deeper equalled more secure and thus more valuable. "The question is, do we want to snoop anyways? This may be our only chance to really spy on Galbatorix."

Arya hesitated. Harry could feel her conflicted feelings on the matter. Every moment they spent there was a moment they could be caught. Deliberately entering a place they knew people traversed was practically asking to be discovered. But on the other hand, it presented a unique opportunity to see exactly what the Varden was up against.

"No." she decided. "Military intelligence is worthless in the face of two more dragons. We go to the closest room first. It is small and accessible, so it is likely Galbatorix's personal office. Anything we might gain from elsewhere will likely be on his desk."

They made towards the nearest room. The corridor went diagonally tangential to their target, yet it did not branch off towards it when they drew level. Instead, the hall continued on for forty more feet before turning the opposite direction. Tense and worried by the angry thrumming of the active wards in the air, they ventured curiously down the hall. It ended with a locked door, cool underground air emanating from the cracks around it.

"Downstairs," he guessed. "Let's backtrack."

It soon became apparent that whatever route existed to the office, it was well hidden even from Harry and Arya, who could examine the shape of the wards and generally puzzle out the layout of the room from there.

A crazy idea came to Harry. "Can we tunnel in?"

He felt Arya's immediate reaction to reject the idea. Instinctually, it sounded like a terrible plan. But the more she thought about it, she convinced herself it wasn't an immediate death sentence.

"If you can put everything exactly the way it was, with no trace of magic."

With a wide grin, Harry pressed up against the wall, feeding his hand through the armhole of the cloak and letting the wooden tip touch the marble wall. Instantly, the angry buzzing of the wards focused its attention on the tip. Cursing mentally, he drew it back slightly and pushed the hem of the collar flush with the marble.

As carefully as if he were performing surgery, Harry traced a rectangle down to the trim between the wall and floor, just big enough for him and Arya to crawl through. He could not vanish the material, for it would force him to conjure a replacement which would not hold up to intense scrutiny. Instead, he transfigured the whole cross section down into a tiny cube of bright green plastic, stuck to the wall to keep it immobile. The stone seemed to fold in on itself, revealing a cramped passageway.

Crawling through it while keeping both of themselves entirely cloaked proved a challenge. The precision of Harry's transformation rendered the marble so smooth it was practically slick, making it difficult to get traction with the silky invisibility cloak between them and the ground. It was nearly seventy crawl-steps to reach the end, by the time Harry had developed a mild case of claustrophobia. Glancing back over Arya, the exit had become a square hole of light no larger than his fist.

Ahead, the way was blocked by a wooden board. Cautious probing revealed it was likely a bookcase, with no enchantments other than to preserve the tomes on its shelves. Harry levitated it to the side as gently as possible, setting it back down completely silently. Passing through the hole was like pressing himself through a tangible membrane of magic, such was the power of the wards. But once on the other side, the oppressive feel vanished.

"He didn't even ward the inside of his office," Harry remarked.

"With wards like those, there would be no need."

The office looked perfectly normal to Harry's eyes, like somewhere belonging to a professor. It was brightly lit and followed the same bright marble and gold color scheme, though it had more black than he'd seen anywhere save the throne room with its massive curtain of Shruikan's wing.

The desk in the center indicated that Galbatorix was a very organized man. Despite the multitude of documents on it, they were all neatly organized and placed vertically in nice stacks. He read the top cover of the leftmost one first.

Census 101 CE.

642,021 men of fighting age

2552 magicians

10,299 mind-readers

1,559,915 population.

The numbers at the headline were then broken down further; by city, gender ratio, occupations, average children per family, etc. The top of the first sheet only showed very basic data, but Harry assumed there was more beneath it. "We can't disturb anything here. Is it worth risking discovery to read beyond the first page?"

"Yes, but do not touch the pages directly, and return them to their exact places." Arya had drawn out her wand and caused the top page of a troop deployment report to float a foot off the pile. She would crane her head to read the underside, then send the next page floating straight up. It was a pain to read through the invisibility cloak, but Harry imagined it would be much worse without elvish eyesight. The spidery black script of the King marked down many sheets of parchment, circling or underlining particularly relevant bits of intelligence.

Harry quickly grew bored of census reports and moved on to the next stack. It was a sheaf of notes written entirely in Galbatorix's hand. The front had been imprinted with a fairth of a crumbled-looking set of glyphs that tickled at the back of his head somehow. He knew he had seen them before, but couldn't piece together where. It was from Hogwarts, of that he was certain.

Precursor language, Galbatorix had written in common. Failed pronunciations were written then scribbled out next to phonetic tables linked to runes by guess-and-check. Notes on the Grey Folk, superstition and supposition scribbled down. It hit Harry then. Hermione had done the same thing in Ancient Runes class.

"Arya. This is the earliest proto-language for English."

The mention of the Name instantly caught her attention. She placed down her papers and leaned over. "Then it seems we are fortunate you cast the fidelius on the most valuable deduction he could make. With any luck, he will continue to search fruitlessly and waste his time." She indicated the stack of reports. "Those are copies of the Varden's and Surda's troop composition, and speculation on the dwarves and elves. They are accurate to my knowledge."

"Can you guess who his spies are based on that information?"

"Only what their ranks must be. He does not have any highly-placed dwarves, or any elves at all, but the reports on the Varden and Surda could only come from very highly-placed people."

Harry made note of it and turned back to tax reports. He lacked the understanding to draw the valuable deductions Arya could make, and was frustrated by the growing tension that came from each passing moment they spent in their enemy's innermost sanctum. "We don't have time for this."

He gestured with his wand, encapsulating the room with his mind and targeting everything within its walls. "Geminio!" he thought as hard as he could. The envelope of space within his tent, inside the expanded space of his pocket grew heavier by the content of one room. "Let's go."

"That was foolish," Arya grumbled. "Were it not for the cloak, you may as well have screamed in Galbatorix's face."

They awkwardly maneuvered into the crawlspace tunnel, Arya levitating the bookshelf back into place. "We would have been there for hours, and I have no idea when Galbatorix decides he's done holding court."

The green bit of plastic expanded, changing color and filling the tunnel once more with seamless marble. Immediately, they headed for the door to the lower levels. By repeating the tunneling trick, Harry easily bypassed the slew of wards and enchantments on the portal, this time filling the hole right after entering. They planned to be in the lower levels for longer than before, and having someone discover it would raise the alarm.

Behind the door, the marble changed to quarried stone, the lighting from flameless lanterns. It was almost reminiscent of the dwarvish style, but with none of the skill or decor. Rough grey stone walls stretched downwards. The staircase wound counterclockwise, ever deeper into the ground. Where before the active wards were angry, here they were furious. The distinctly offensive magic constantly scoured the area for people, watching the doorway especially intently.

Doorways became more sparse and with longer stretches between them. No longer made of finely decorated materials, they became ironbound slabs of hardwood fitted into reinforced frames. Conveniently, each doorway had a window covered in bars to look through, which made cursory searches easy.

It was there that he found the first room that was pretty obviously evil. It was filled with ice chests and within them, harvested human organs. He had not realized immediately what they were, for they lacked the collective consciousness animals had, but they did have the slow, sluggish lifeforce of a plant. It was ultimately the shape of a pair of lungs that clued him in. He shared his observation with Arya, who agreed with his deduction.

The hallway raked very slightly downwards, a shallow ramp that seemed endless. It took twenty minutes of walking to reach the first doorway that barred their way. Harry was certain that without magic to filter the air, it would have gotten too stale to breathe. It was at that door that they came across the first guards beyond Shruikan's doorway.

There were four of them, two on each side of the door, and they all looked to be alert. "Do we stun them?"

"Not yet. We do not know if guards falling unconscious starts an alarm. I would be surprised if killing them did not."

"The Imperius?"

"The best option," Arya agreed. Harry cast an additional muffling charm on the both of them. Because they needed to be spoken aloud, most silencing charms would actually stop the casting of Unforgivables. Harry used muffliato since it did not actually silence them, merely muffle the sound past whoever was included in its casting.

"Three, two, one, imperio." They both cast in unison. Harry rifled through his guard's mind for an excuse to open the door that would not raise suspicion. None existed. It seemed Galbatorix took security very seriously indeed. All four of them were sworn to extensive binding oaths to keep to their duty, and they switched shifts often enough that they never grew inattentive.

"Get the right-hand guy through the door," Harry ordered, lining up his wand through the door. Again, the nearly invisible spellbolt of the imperius shot forth, sinking unimpeded through the doorway. Holding the imperius on two people was a new challenge, but not so difficult when he was just keeping them still and silent.

He created a temporary tunnel that went around the door, sealing it behind him.

Neither of you will remember anything out of the ordinary, he commanded his thralls. One of them put up a tiny bit of resistance, which he suppressed easily. Harry released one at first, waiting with bated breath to see if he had noticed.

The man itched the side of his nose, then settled back into his position. Tentatively, he released the other. "I wish to keep one," Arya stated. "He would be the ideal spy."

"Can't you use vermin or something? I do not know if the Imperius can contradict a victim's oath."

"There are no vermin in the citadel. Perhaps one of the beasts in Galbatorix's menagerie, but I doubt they will be in the position to hear or see anything useful."

Harry knew it was a bad idea. He did not know if Galbatorix casually invaded the minds of his servants, but based on what he did know, it was likely. If he developed the same skill Oromis was teaching him and Eragon in the glade, he would probably notice something out of order when regular bursts of euphoria suppressed his guards' consciousness.

"You can recast it on the way out. The eggs come first."

Behind the door, the hallway split open into a guard's complex. Harry spotted several more soldiers milling about, wandering between the barracks and the small makeshift armory. The main hall continued unimpeded, and at the end was another guarded door.

Harry and Arya shuffled right up to it, extremely mindful of the hem of the cloak. The portal was identical in every way to the last except one. There were no guards on the other side. There were too many guards in the complex to imperius them all, yet they could easily see if the door opened on its own.

"The octagonal room is close behind that door," Arya whispered mentally.

"Do we tunnel? We could find an out-of-the-way corner in a closet and start it there."

She considered it briefly. "We cannot cast illusions or subdue this many guards. Yours is the only option."

Extending his senses cautiously, the layout of the complex unfolded in Harry's mind. It was a simple construction. The main hallway ran parallel to the bulk of it, connecting in three places. The commons, the barracks, and the armory. Behind them, there was a small infirmary, kitchens, and rooms for privies. The non-military portions were against the back wall.

"Unfortunately, I think our best bet is the rightmost privy," Arya winced.

"Well, at least the bubbleheads mean we won't be breathing it," Harry tried optimistically.

It was no less disgusting with bubbleheads. The 'privy,' if it could even be called that, was nothing but a room where waste was deposited. Lacking even buckets, Harry grimaced at the thought of having to do his business there every day. He was very mindful of where he placed his feet.

As he began creating the first increment of the tunnel, Harry kept his mind open to watch for soldiers making their way towards the privy. They didn't move much. Most napped on their cots, sat at a table eating or playing dice, or maintained their weapons in the armory. One headed down the hallway towards them. Harry waited to begin. When the man reached the branch in the corridor, he turned left.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He placed his wand against the wall. The first cut he made was ten feet deep. He wanted to get to the end, make the next segment, then close the previous one off behind him. They would be on the other side too long to leave it open and hope no one came across it, especially not in a public area like the loo.

He helped Arya up, then clambered into the hole himself. The moment his knees touched the inside of the tunnel, a man got up from the table. Harry crawled carefully after Arya, meticulously ensuring the hem of the cloak touched the ground around them in a complete outline.

The man turned down the hall towards the privy. Harry sent a sense of urgency to Arya. They reached the end of the tunnel. The guard was thirty feet away, walking swiftly. He jammed his wand over her shoulder and scratched out a square, forcing it back another ten feet.

The guard walked up to the doorway to the privy. The jangle of armor was audible through the tunnel.

Arya scrambled forwards into the new space, Harry directly behind her. He glanced over his shoulder. The mouth of the tunnel was a dim square. He began reverting the transfiguration just as the guard entered.

Just before the opening sealed, a mumbled voice echoed down it. "What the-?"

The dim light plunged into blackness. Harry's palms were slick against the cut stone. His heart raced. Had the guard seen? He had noticed something, but would he dismiss it, or report it.

Arya continued to crawl ahead of him, forcing him to follow closely. For the first time since his transformation, Harry's eyesight failed him completely. No amount of sensitive retinas would be able to produce an image in absolute darkness. He was left to grope around, feeling the corners of the tunnel and Arya's body ahead of him. Their only orientation was mental.

Each time Arya reached the end of the tunnel, she'd flatten herself against it and let him reach over her shoulder to open the next segment. They would crawl a few feet in, then Harry would reach back and seal the previous one. In increments of ten feet, it was slow going. The absolute darkness and the inability to stand up did not help Harry's mounting claustrophobia.

Behind them, the man's mental presence left the privy. Harry relaxed minutely. The man had headed back to the commons. But he did not sit down. After standing opposite another guard for a moment, both of them returned to the privy.

"The man is investigating what he thinks he saw," Harry sent urgently.

"Can you hit them with the imperius from here?" Arya demanded.

"Wait until they reach the privy. No witnesses."

It was a tense minute as the guard and his superior made their way back to the privy. Harry turned around and bit his lip, lofting his wand and lining it up as best he could. He pointed it at the back wall of the tunnel, aimed as close as he could manage to the first man. "Imperio!" he whispered intently. The spellbolt sank unimpeded into the wall, shedding the faintest light for an instant.

The privy was at least thirty paces back. Harry waited ten seconds with bated breath. Both men were pressed up against the wall where the tunnel opening had been. He cursed. If the spell was going to hit, he would have felt the connection establish already. He lined up another shot and recast.

It took only a couple seconds for the imperius to travel through nearly a hundred feet of solid stone. Harry sagged in relief as the supervisor's mind was laid bare to him. Act normally, he commanded. He adjusted his aim and shot again. The spell flew true.

You will both forget anything suspicious, and continue as if nothing happened. Harry sent one out first, then the other a minute later before releasing them both from his control. They both settled in and did not move from their positions for five nerve wracking minutes.

"I think we're good."

They made it to the other side of the doorway without any more trouble. Harry felt a surge of relief dropping out of the tiny crawlspace. "It was so much easier doing this when we were all children and the cloak could cover four people easily."

Arya nearly laughed out loud. "I am imagining what a nightmare you must have been to your professors with this thing."

"Hey! I only really used the cloak to thwart my nemesis. Fred and George were indisputably worse behaved."

The door to the octagonal room loomed before them. There were two minds beyond the door, and neither of them were moving. Both were low to the ground, as if they were bowed over. Harry disillusioned a peephole and squinted through it. He gasped. "Arya, you have to see this!"

Arya knelt down in his stead. A furious expression twisted her beautiful features. "We cannot leave them."

"No, we can't," Harry agreed. "Alohamora."

Beyond the open stone door, the hall of the Soothsayer laid before them. It was a large, octagonal stone room, dominated by a man-sized slab of stone in the center of the room, laid flat like a table. All across the walls, lines of red, yellow, and blue traced around the room, crisscrosing each other in strange patterns yet remaining unbroken.

"Come to force me to swear service to you, bastard?" A scratchy voice demanded angrily.

"We're here to bust you out," Harry corrected. For bound to the slab by thick metal cuffs was Murtagh, the son of Morzan and Eragon's half brother. And shackled to a rack next to him was a red dragon the size of a large dog.

AN: For those of you who are hating on the presence of Harry's (as yet unused) CNC machine since he'd have no way to make it, I refer you to Burnable's fics Back to the Beginning, Origins, and his MCU/HP x-over. Transfiguration features there as an enormous shortcut to engineering where part fabrication is literally instant, and limited only to the imagination of the caster. You could be a pretty shit engineer and still produce masterpieces with the ability to make parts unbreakable, frictionless, or else imbuing them with artificial intelligence a la Weasley car, enchanted mirror, magical tape measure, etc. Having said that, I can't exactly expect you to read my mind and know the reasoning behind his having those machines, so expect a scene or chapter dedicated to that process in the future.

The CNC mill is probably the biggest stretch, but he's had lessons from Steve Jobs in programming and already produced a pseudo-computer, so a paint-by-numbers machine isn't too far beyond imagination. Someone was offended by the centrifuge idea, and let me tell you, that would be the EASIEST one to make. Literally all it does is spin fast. Some medical startup managed to make one out of paper to test for AIDS in poor parts of Africa.

Also, regarding the kind of ridiculous method of acquiring material in this chapter, I would like to defend myself by saying that Paolini started it. During Brisingr, Eragon remembers that he stole leathers from Gedric to make Saphira's saddle, and that he ruined Helena's life (Jeod's wife) by inciting him to break into the secure records room, and I completely forgot where the third bit went. He cast this spell that summoned all the trace amounts of gold in the soil for miles around him to bind into three balls, which I have headcanoned to have a diameter of one inch. I did a lot of math, and the decision I came to was that Harry's access to tree power and gems means he can make a one-foot cube of gold to Eragon's threeish cubic inches. (Eragon did not have any Eldunari at the point when he gathered the gold, so he was able to get that with just his own strength (though it was past the Agaeti Blodhren, so he had elf strength.))

Via the aforementioned lots of math, and wikipedia's list of relative abundance of materials in the earth's crust in ppm (parts per million,) one cubic foot of gold translates to FOUR F*CKING MILES CUBED OF ALUMINUM. Naturally, that was ridiculous so I had to downsize. Now, you get a hand-wavy "lot" of each metal which will last for a long time. At least until Harry decides to start building skyscrapers out of metal, or giant bridges.